REF impact found 213 Case Studies

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Summary of the impact

The pedagogic research undertaken by the School of Law has produced an
ambitious and innovative model of clinical legal education: the in-house
live client model, which offers a university-based free legal service
offering full representation to private clients and NGOs in the form of
the Student Law Office. The Student Law Office integrates supervised legal
service in the law curriculum, thereby delivering free access to justice
to the wider community whilst benefiting the learning environment. Impact
is three-fold:

a major contribution to voluntary legal services in a region with high
social deprivation: over 1,000 clients secured access to justice and
over £840,000 of compensation has been recovered for clients;

a national and world leading role influencing the legal profession,
regulators and policy makers; and

building the capacity of law clinics in other HEIs to provide a free
legal service.

Submitting Institution

Northumbria University Newcastle

Unit of Assessment

Law

Summary Impact Type

Societal

Research Subject Area(s)

Education: Curriculum and Pedagogy, Specialist Studies In EducationLaw and Legal Studies: Law

Summary of the impact

Anxiety before dental procedures is common in children, and is usually
managed by conscious
sedation of the patient. Previously, nitrous oxide inhalation was the only
method widely used in
primary care, so patients who could not be thus sedated were referred for
general anaesthesia. In
2010, NICE published the first national guideline on medical sedation,
which states that
administration of midazolam should be considered alongside the standard
technique of nitrous
oxide inhalation for sedation of children. That recommendation is based on
robust evidence, the
majority of which came from a series of randomised controlled clinical
trials carried out by
researchers at Newcastle University. Midazolam is now deployed as a
second-line sedation option
across the UK.

Submitting Institution

Newcastle University

Unit of Assessment

Allied Health Professions, Dentistry, Nursing and Pharmacy

Summary Impact Type

Health

Research Subject Area(s)

Summary of the impact

The Variable Life-Adjusted Display (VLAD) is a graphical tool for
monitoring clinical outcomes. It
has been widely adopted by UK cardiac surgery centres, and has helped a
shift in culture towards
more open outcome assessment in adult cardiac surgery, which has been
credited with reduced
mortality rates. VLAD is also being used for a broad range of other
clinical outcomes by regulatory
bodies worldwide. For example, Queensland Health uses VLAD as a major part
of its Patient
Safety and Quality Improvement Service to monitor 34 outcomes across 64
public hospitals, and
NHS Blood and Transplant uses VLAD to monitor early outcomes of all UK
transplants.

Submitting Institution

University College London

Unit of Assessment

Mathematical Sciences

Summary Impact Type

Health

Research Subject Area(s)

Summary of the impact

The way in which UK upland hay meadows are managed and restored to
conserve botanical
diversity has been largely determined by research carried out at Newcastle
University. Increased
post-war agricultural production has converted most species-rich upland
hay meadows to species-
poor rye-grass grassland so that today only 1070 ha (hectares) undisturbed
hay meadow remains.
The Newcastle research has been used by Natural England (an executive
non-departmental public
body responsible for England's natural environment) to produce targeted
management
prescriptions for 2500 ha of farmland in northern England and has informed
National Park and
AONB (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty) management on best practice for
successful
restoration of hay meadows. The research has ensured the successful
restoration of more than
half of the remaining upland hay meadows in England.

Submitting Institution

Newcastle University

Unit of Assessment

Agriculture, Veterinary and Food Science

Summary Impact Type

Environmental

Research Subject Area(s)

Summary of the impact

Ongoing research by the University of Southampton has led to significant
advances in the understanding of respiratory diseases, for which the
dearth of available treatments had health repercussions on a global scale
for many years. The formation of a spin-out company, Synairgen, has
enabled the discovery and development of new therapeutics, the filing of
several major patents in the UK, the US and Asia and external
collaborations with industry and government funders. These continuing
developments are key to tackling conditions that affect millions of
sufferers in the UK alone and which, according to some estimates, cost the
NHS £2.6bn every year. The research has given rise to more than £16m in
follow-on funding from the NIHR and the MRC for further studies into the
treatment of respiratory illnesses.

Submitting Institution

University of Southampton

Unit of Assessment

Clinical Medicine

Summary Impact Type

Technological

Research Subject Area(s)

Summary of the impact

BRITEST is a global leader in the development of innovative process
solutions for the chemical
processing sector with > £500m of value being realized since 2008.
Research in Manchester
(1997-2000) generated a set of novel tools and methodologies which analyse
chemical processes
to identify where and how process improvements could be made. BRITEST was
established in
2001 as a not-for-profit company to manage the technology transfer and
effective deployment of
these tools and methodologies into industry. Manchester holds the IP
arising from the underpinning
research and has granted an exclusive license to BRITEST for use and
exploitation of the toolkit.

Summary of the impact

The research team at Bucks New University has provided the groundwork for
a number of applications to use cardiac power output as a novel functional
measurement in the clinical evaluation of patients with heart failure and
other related diseases. It involved validating the measure, assessing its
reliability and applying it to a group of patients with end-stage heart
failure. The success of this procedure is now evidenced by the number of
national and international clinical centres adopting cardiac power output
as a key functional measurement.

Submitting Institution

Buckinghamshire New University

Unit of Assessment

Allied Health Professions, Dentistry, Nursing and Pharmacy

Summary Impact Type

Health

Research Subject Area(s)

Summary of the impact

The History Department's Centre for the Study of Christianity and Culture
(CSCC) employed its research expertise in religious history to improve the
understanding and sustainability of historic churches and cathedrals.
These together form England's largest single 'estate' of built heritage
with over 11 million visitors each year. From 2008 the Centre developed an
extensive programme of national partnerships, which have led to
significant and wide-reaching impact:

(i) creating new aids to help visitors engage with sacred sites

(ii) encouraging tourism and enhancing access to these national and
international heritage sites for people from all cultural and faith
backgrounds

Summary of the impact

Research produced at Northumbria on migration to and from Britain in the
nineteenth and twentieth
centuries has enriched the presentation and understanding of cultural
heritage and public
discourse in the North East of England and in South Carolina. It has
contributed to the creation of:

1) a permanent exhibit at the Discovery Museum in Newcastle

2) a series on Englishness at the Literary and Philosophical Society of
Newcastle

3) an exhibition in Charleston, South Carolina that will become the first
permanent digital
exhibition in the Lowcountry Digital Archive

This research has shaped the cultural sector's historical understanding
of the role played by
migration on English and Irish identity and resulted in more durable
collaborations between history
at Northumbria and public history practitioners.

Summary of the impact

The preserved remains of an ancient human body, familiarly dubbed `Lindow
Man', are among the
British Museum's most celebrated exhibits. For over 20 years, Lindow Man
was presented as a
victim of a highly ritualised killing and as compelling evidence that
human sacrifice was practised
in ancient Britain. This conditioned not merely popular views of the
British past but also attitudes
to religious pluralism in the present. Professor Ronald Hutton's research
resulted in a
fundamental alteration of the display, to one encouraging a multiplicity
of interpretations and so
more tolerant attitudes. The exhibit was radically changed when it was
loaned to the Museum of
Manchester in 2008, and a new format embodying this pluralist approach was
adopted when it
returned to the British Museum in 2011. The much-different exhibit was
seen by more than
100,000 visitors to the Museum of Manchester and is now experienced by
millions of visitors to
the British Museum each year.